Does anyone genuinely expect us to sign anyone

Not wishing to sound like a 'Little Englander', I think British football and BFC in particular could do with a home grown focus. We may as well get rid of the Academy when we're signing young lads from all corners of Europe and the British Isles we're saying that we've no lads coming through our own system that are likely to make the grade.

 

that's exactly my thoughts too.

 

Found this, which not upto date but says in 2016/17 there were 27 players in total played pro football that came from Barnsley Academy.
This placed us 37th in the country.

I would have thought this suggests the academy is finding and developing the players but for some reason they are not progressing to our first team.
https://trainingground.guru/articles/academy-audit

 

I’m at a loss why the Ludwig kid is here, never mind shoved straight into the first team when surely there’s a few in the academy worth a shot?
Maybe they are all poor but I find that hard to believe tbh

 

I don't rate our chances of signing a British player who knows English football well, who can get us out of the mess the board have put us in and doesn't need to get used to a new country, language, league and culture.

It isn't a coincidence all our best assets last summer (Davies, Lindsay and Pinnock) are all British and that the players most likely to be sold for millions this summer (Woodrow, Chaplin and Mowatt) are again all British.

We never sell foreign for good money. It never works for us.

 

Only Pinnock was willing to discuss a contract out of the 4, Lindsay the worst of the lot.

 

And shows how **** league 1 is if the worst team in the history of the Championship can bounce straight back up.

 

But we could have kept them and sold them in january or at least kept pinnock, we wouldnt have got as much but so what. I'd put money on we wouldnt be in the bottom 3 with pinnock and lindsay in defence.
Even after we did sell we didnt have to bring in young kids from mickey mouse leagues in europe who have never kicked a ball in the championship. But were still doing that this window so were not learning.

 

Wolfsberger AC are a much better side than us, I'd be glad if he brought 3/4 of their team over.

 

Bet their supporters wont be!

 

But the odds of a player coming through the Academy and succeeding in the championship or Premier level are very small.
To be playing regularly in either of these leagues you need to be one of the top 600 players in the country (43 x 14). Consider that > 1/3 of these are foreign and Premier teams stock pile players who could probably play in the Championship we would need to be producing a players who is in the best 350-400 in the country, maybe even higher quality?. It's a big ask to be doing it in numbers or on a regular basis.

 

I've been on their forum a few times, they seem quite philosophical about it. They seem, in general, to regard Barnsley as a much bigger and richer club, they admire "football on the island" as they see it, and they see it as a career move for their players. Good set of guys on there, proper football fans.

 

There 4th in the austrian Bundesliga, I think the championship is a much better league than the Austrian Bundesliga.

 

Which begs the question as to why we persist with a system that isn't delivering and costs a not insignificant sum of money to run? Not one of our starting 11 on Tuesday came through our Academy system.

 

tbf they’re certainly not in it for the laughs

 

I'm not comparing the leagues, l'm comparing his former club and ours, although the top 2 teams in their league would wipe the floor with Leeds or WBA. Strubers former club have had a brilliant Europa run, 2 draws against Roma and beating Monchengladbach, who were top of the Bundesliga 4-0 on their own turf. We would have got trounced against opposition like that.

 

I hope your right and this center half turns out to be great and we keep loads of clean sheets and stay up. It's just the other European defenders we signed we worse than the ones we sold (by some distance) were in the **** and we have signed a midfielder from Austria and a young kid neither have played in england before, and now this lad I would have just liked a player who knows the championship or at least the english leagues.

 

I think we'll sign someone. No idea if they'll have the required quality.

Biggest disappointment for me is we've used up money and a squad place on a 19 year old who will be learning on the job just like the rest of our defence. Go sign your captain from your previous club, that's fine, but when it comes after signing a kid from the same league who will not be ready for this level... It just continues the barmyness. Jordan Williams isn't the best player in the world, but he's trying, and he was our best player on Tuesday, yet we had to move him to left back, where he's far less effective, against Preston because the new signing was being ripped to pieces. Someone we'd been told could play either side. On Tuesday he couldn't and he was miles off.

There's no thought gone into our recruitment. We desperately needed experience yet we signed even younger and less experienced, when we've been told the squad is too big as it is. And it doesn't even sound like it's with an option of a permanent deal. It's bat **** mental.

We've limited funds but we waste them on quantity. If you sign more players than the amount that can fill a match day squad then you're chucking money away. Buy one instead of two who is on double the wages but twice the quality.

It's just crap, like someone is playing Championship manager.

 

Until today, your pen name was a mystery, but it was explained on TV that Gimson and the Barnsley Brothers were heavily involved in the design and construction of Rodmarton Hall, so everything is now revealed. Interesting.